


Until The Morning Light

by Penknife



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Cooking, Drinking, Gen, Holidays, Implied Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus, references to canonical trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29244024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: Jyn's been invited to help celebrate a traditional Jedha holiday. Apparently it involves a lot of drinking.
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Jyn Erso & Chirrut Îmwe & K-2SO & Baze Malbus & Bodhi Rook
Comments: 18
Kudos: 39
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Until The Morning Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whalebone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalebone/gifts).



Jyn is used to loud parties. The Partisans drank when they had succeeded in missions, or sometimes when missions went wrong. Either way, the point was to drown out doubt with swagger and boasting and a lot of alcohol. The Rebels seem to have the same philosophy. They drink when they win, they drink when they lose, and they laugh and brag and sing and cry, raw alcohol-tinged catharsis for every feeling you can't express in the cockpit of a starfighter.

She's not sure what to make of a quiet party. Nidera is the beginning of pilgrimage season on Jedha, apparently. The fact that no one with any sense has made a pilgrimage to Jedha since the Imperial occupation is apparently irrelevant. The fact that there is now very little left on Jedha to make a pilgrimage to after the destruction of the Holy City is apparently also irrelevant. What is relevant is that this is the traditional occasion for an all-night drinking party, which Chirrut and Baze are hosting, with Bodhi as their fellow conspirator.

It's not what she expected. Baze and Bodhi are cooking an assortment of fried leaves and roots that smell amazing while arguing about whether the spices in the batter are right. The fact that, on a remote Rebel base, they have found spices, oil, something to cook fried things in, and things to fry is probably a minor miracle all by itself. Chirrut is handing around a plate of salted fried things while eating half of them himself. Cassian looks as baffled as she is, but he's nursing his first drink rather than bolting it, which is a good sign that he may make it through the entire party. K-2 is asking questions like "What is a holiday? I'm not sure holidays can be trusted."

Other Rebel personnel are drifting in and out of the lounge, collecting snacks and drinks and talking for a while with Chirrut or Cassian. The fact that they have the lounge all night is probably Cassian's doing. Jyn wonders what kind of holidays they had on Fest, and whether she ought to ask. She decides not to, because Cassian seems pretty contented, and is explaining to K-2 that a holiday is not actually an existential threat.

It's clear after a couple of hours that while other people have been invited to stop by, or have navigated there using the unerring Rebel instinct for finding food and drink and been handed plates and glasses, the only ones who've been invited to stay all night are the survivors of Scarif. She asks Bodhi about it, when he takes a break from cooking; the fried vegetables have given way to some kind of bitter syrup poured over ice to make swirls of candy that tastes of bittersweet smoke. She can't decide whether she likes the result or not, and copies Cassian in putting hers in her drink, where it can only mellow the raw distilled alcohol.

"So if we drink all night, aren't we going to be very drunk?" Cassian asks.

"That's the idea," Bodhi says, sounding amused. "But you're supposed to stay up all night, so pace yourself."

"This planet's rotation is an hour shorter than Jedha's, so you get off the hook earlier," Baze says. He's drinking steadily but slowly. Chirrut has come to sit in front of his chair, his back resting against Baze's knees. They look very comfortable that way, as if that's all they need to feel at home.

Eventually other people stop wandering in, as night gives way to early morning. It's strange to have a party with this few people, and strange for the party not to be about trying to be loud enough to stop thinking. They talk about the missions they've been on lately, Bodhi flying transports, Jyn and Cassian and K-2 doing recon (by which they mean acquiring information and packages and removing obstacles that need to be removed), and Baze and Chirrut also doing recon (by which they mean actually doing recon, Jyn thinks, although she suspects that Baze has done his share of removing obstacles in his time.) It's possible that she assumes that Baze is more ruthless than he actually is because she's ruthless. Right now the man is putting little pieces of meat onto sticks, which are also apparently going to be fried.

"Shouldn't you put those in the batter first?" Bodhi asks. The alcohol is doing its work on him, slowing down his usual restless gestures and making his head tilt slightly as he moves. It's not a state in which he should probably help do things involving hot oil. 

"Too late, I'm doing this," Baze said. "You can make the pancakes later."

"You're just saying that because you'll be drunk by then," Bodhi says, shaking his head at Baze in owl-eyed amusement.

"It's traditional for everyone to be drunk by the time anyone makes pancakes," Chirrut says. "Just eat them whatever they look like, you won't care by then."

Jyn hasn't led the kind of life that involves turning down meals, even pancakes made by very drunk people celebrating a holiday she's still not sure she understands. "I'm sure they'll be delicious."

The meat sticks are good, and are enough to banish the feeling that she is actually starting to float under the influence of the alcohol, although she is aware that she's still drunk. Bodhi is eating less and drinking more than she is.

"Last time we celebrated this on a rooftop," Chirrut says.

"I spent the whole time worrying that we were going to wind up robbed," Baze said.

"We didn't."

"The petty criminals who showed up and demanded food and drink—"

"We were hospitable. It was fine."

Jyn looks sideways at Bodhi, on the grounds that this is probably the time when he'll remember that the people he used to celebrate this holiday with are dead. Instead, he says, "When I was a boy, I used to nag my aunts to let me fry things, until the year when … the year when …" He stops, looking confused for a moment, and then sick to his stomach. He stands, and makes his way out of the room more quickly than is advisable given his current ability to navigate his way around furniture and through doors.

Jyn starts to go after him on the theory that she's probably more competent than he is to cope with things right now.

"I will retrieve him," K-2 says. "I don't know why everyone leaves these things to me."

"Don't stop him," Cassian says, putting a hand on her arm when Jyn starts to point out that no one with any sense leaves taking care of people to K-2. "They're making friends, I think. And Kay is … better at people than most people suspect."

All the same, Jyn feels that she should go after K-2, who hasn't, in her experience, demonstrated either tact or much understanding of why organic beings do things. Although she's starting to suspect that sometimes K-2 is just saying things to tease Cassian. Probably that is not something a droid should be programmed to do, but K-2's programming doesn't always make sense.

The next room is a smaller lounge, empty at this hour. K-2 has folded himself to sit on one of its chairs, which looks a bit ridiculous. Bodhi is sitting on the floor at his feet, as if seeking comfort from K-2's metal frame, which seems equally improbable. And yet, she's seen Cassian sit like that, sometimes, with K-2 looming over him as a protector.

"That was a happy memory, and now I can't—when I try to think about it, everything just twists—" Bodhi's hands weave through the air, his eyes closed. "I'm so much better at not thinking about what Bor Gullet did to my mind, but there are places that are just—torn. The things it touched."

"Having your mind taken apart is uncomfortable," K-2 says. "I find that it's best not to think about it."

Bodhi looks up at K-2, his head back against K-2's metal knees. "A lot of people don't think that droids mind having their memory wiped, or being reprogrammed. But you do, don't you?"

"I have been frequently told that I am not representative of other droids," K-2 says.

"I like you the way you are," Bodhi says.

"I like myself the way I am. But I have been damaged. The damage is part of who I am."

Bodhi lets out a long breath, buries his face in his hands for a moment, and then lifts his head, looking better. "I'm missing the party, aren't I?"

"What is the point of consuming all this alcohol, if it is not to say things that you would otherwise have too many inhibitions to say? I am genuinely confused."

"It's traditional," Bodhi says, reaching up a hand. K-2 hauls him up by one wrist rather than helping him up the way a human would, but Bodhi doesn't seem to mind.

"Well, that is a helpful explanation, now I understand," K-2 says with heavy sarcasm, and Jyn slips away before the two of them can see her.

She's not sure if it's the next drink or one after that that makes the room spin, only that it is, for a while, spinning, which she doesn't like. She lies down on a couch, and Chirrut puts his hand on her forehead, which may or may not be some kind of Force thing. It's grounding either way. His hand feels very warm.

After a while she feels better and manages to sit up with her back to the back of the sofa. Bodhi is now making some sort of pancakes, while very drunk. The hot oil has been taken away, which makes this a slightly less death-defying task, and replaced by a pan set over a heating element. The batter goes into the pan, poured from a great height while Chirrut and Baze cheer on the process, and then is stirred frantically until some ideal point is reached, at which point it's supposed to set and be flipped.

"Turn it now," Chirrut says.

"You can't even see it," Bodhi says. Neither can Jyn, but she can smell something burning. "Oh—right, I should—I think it's sticking—"

"It's fine," Chirrut says. "Very traditional."

The very traditional pancake that gets handed to Jyn on a plate is crumpled, dense in some places and fluffy in others, and very definitely scorched on one side. It's sweet and just a bit herbal and delicious. She eats it cheerfully and holds out her plate for another.

Cassian does, in fact, go to sleep before dawn.

"No stamina," Baze says. "He should be ashamed."

"What happens at dawn?" Jyn asks.

"The party's over," Bodhi says, looking tired, and as if he's starting to sober up a little. "We get as much sleep as we can, and pay for this tomorrow."

"Nobody's hung over after the holiday," Chirrut says. "Everyone knows that."

"It's just a coincidental headache," Baze says. He looks sideways at Jyn. "Thanks for coming. Making it feel more like home."

Jyn shrugs. "This is home for me."

"And me," Cassian says, although his eyes are still closed.

"I was only here to prevent gruesome accidents or regrettable brawls," K-2 says, although Jyn thinks that's not entirely true.

"You did a good job of that, Kay," Cassian says. "Full marks."

"We'll do it again next year," Chirrut says, and Jyn wishes that she had his confidence in a future where they're all alive and together and able to eat little snacks this time next year. Or maybe it's just hope. She's in favor of hope.

"Next year," she says, and raises her glass for one last toast before the dawn.


End file.
